Crutsy ID This speciman showed up in my car in Nayarit Mexico. I found it after I was on the beach in San Blas. None of the locals had a clue what it was. Please feel free to contact me for further info. Thanks for hosting your site. Steve Pratt

Scolopendra h. arizonensis? Hi Bugman, My roommate found this beauty digging a garden in the neighbors yard in Gisela, AZ. It is aprox. 9-10 inches long. None of us want to get close enough to measure it accurately. We decided to house it in a 20 gallon aquarium for a little while and observe it, take pictures, video etc… and then release it on the opposite side of the Tonto Creek from our house, just to be safe. We can find a few crickets about to feed it, but we do have lots of scorpions, a nest of them actual, on the property, will it eat scorpions? or will the scorpion kill it. My roommate is a vegetarian/Buddhist so he won’t let me fed it any mammals such as mice or lizards, or amphibians, which we also have running about. But he is O.K. with feeding it scorpions and other insects I can find. I tried stink beetles but the centipede didn’t seem to like those. Also, did we identify it correctly? Luv your website, really cool! Thanks, Ardra

Hi Ardra, We are certain this is Scolopendra heros, but we are not sure how the subspecies are identified. One color variant of this species is called the Giant Redheaded Centipede, but your specimen is one of the black headed ones. The primary food of these Desert Centipedes consists of small arthropods, so crickets should work nicely. We are not sure who would eat whom in a centipede/scorpion match.

blue beetles in New Mexico
Hi bugman,
I just moved to Las Cruces NM from Australia. My husband, 6 week old puppy and I were walking in one of the local arroyos yesterday and we saw what we thought were jewels on the ground. Closer inspection revealed two beetles. One large and one small….roundish like a grape with brilliant iridescent blue spots on their backs. They moved very fast once we took an interest in them. As my husband held back the puppy I used his cell phone to attempt a picture. I am not use to his phone and the glare was pretty bad at that time of the afternoon so the photos were dismal..but this one sort of captures the larger beetle in flight from us. My husband has previously lived in this area for a number of years and has never come across these beetles. I have started a search through Google and your site (I am up to page 6 of the beetles) but as the 6 week old puppy keeps wanting attention I am a bit distracted from the task! I hope that you can help us with an identification.
Thanks,
Kate

Hi Kate,
Your photo is quite blurry, but we are nearly certain this is a type of Blister Beetle in the genus Cysteodemus known as the Desert Spider Beetles. There is one blurry photo on BugGuide that matches your image, and it is identified as Cysteodemus wislizeni.

Tiger Beetle in Sunol Regional Wilderness
We found these 2 tiger beetles yesterday (3/29/07) in the Sunol Regional Wilderness
park; that’s northern CA, East Bay, but I’m not sure which county. It’s definitely not the 6 spotted tiger beetle. I hope you can identify it. Or, after further searching your site, maybe it is: Cicindela_sexguttata, as I see that they can come without spots and they must be quite common. thank you,
Katherine Suri
back yard naturalist

Hi Katherine,
Tiger Beetles are carnivorous predators and your Blister Beetles were at some point feeding on the blossom in the photo. These Blister Beetles match an image on BugGuide of Lytta stygica, but a comment posted by Joyce Gross claims: “There is another beetle, Lytta chloris , which looks very much the same as Lytta stygica . But according to specimens I looked at, Lytta chloris occurs a bit further north, and more specifically, according to John Pinto, Lytta chloris doesn’t occur south of the Tehachapi Mountains.” We are concluding that your specimen is probably Lytta chloris unless Lytta stygica occurs further North in addition to its Southern California range. Since we brought up the carnivorous versus phytophagous or plant eating diets, Blister Beetles are quite a rarity in the beetle world. Though diets of immature and adult insects tend to include different foods, carvivorous larvae usually grow into carnivorous adults and phytophagous larvae grow into phytophagous adults. Many larval Blister Beetles are flesh eating, with grasshopper eggs being a choice food, while the adults feed on leaves and blossoms.

Luna Moth in Waco, Tx. We found this Luna Moth in the brezeway of our apartments. We see all different kinds of them this time of the year. My grandkids take them to school for Show & Tell then we set them frre around the same place that we found them. Barbara, in Waco,Tx

Hi Barbara, Thanks for sending us your photo. We are also pleased to hear that show and tell is still alive and well and that insects still play a prominent roll in that compelling education method.